Search

“You did what? You invited him here for dinner, tonight.” She is wearing a very tight leotard and has a small towel over her shoulder.

To herself she thinks, “What an unbelievable moron. Like I can do this with an hour’s notice.”

“Today’s Tuesday, you know how much I like to watch American Idol.”

“No problem, after we eat I’ll take him in the den. He wants a few minutes to talk in private.” He puts his shoulder holster in the hall cabinet, actually a small, built in, gun vault and locks the door. “I didn’t think it would be a big deal. We can just have pizza. He’ll be fine with whatever we have. Don’t worry about it.”

“This is Jim Farrington you’re talking about, right?” She puts her half empty glass of Chardonnay on the island and nearly spills it.

“Yea, I guess your grandfather told him to call me.”

“Granpa. What is he up to? Must have something to do with Lisa.”

“My grandfather, OK, so what’s going on? And what do you think Lisa’s going to say about this?”

“He better not be playing favorites again.”

Paula is resentful of her youngest sister Lisa, and has been for most of her life. It seems to her it’s always been the case that everyone likes Lisa better, even though, apart from their age difference of eleven years, they could be twins.

Lisa spends four great years in Freeport, Maine and graduates from Bowdoin, and now is living in style in Europe. Paula, on the other hand, leaves Williams after two years, pregnant with Patrick Jr., and now works part time as a legal assistant downtown, for Alex Bannon & Associates, PLC.

“Look this is all I …..

“Wait a minute, didn’t he just get married a couple of months ago, to that girl he dumped Lisa for last year?”

“You know I don’t know anything about what happened to him after they split. So do you want to know what I do know or not?”

Long pause.

She walks over to Pat and puts her arms around him. “Sorry, look, the kids have just been awful ever since they got home from school. I’ll cook the steaks I bought for this weekend. That be OK?”

“Lisa may be Granpa’s favorite but I have Pat and the kids and she still doesn’t know what she’s doing in Berlin.”

“Steak would be perfect, I’ll cook them on the grill. You want to do the veggies and salad?” Before she can say anything, “And you’re right, I screwed up. I should’ve called you first. Won’t happen again, and I know I haven’t been here as much as I should’ve for the last month, but the case is almost settled. Should be back to regular hours next week. I’ll make it up to you and the kids. Really, that’s why I invited him, otherwise I might have been out with him half the night.”

“If only I had gotten my degree and had my own career. It would have been different.”

She smiles at Pat and shakes her head. “Let me get the steaks. Then I need to shower and get changed and you can tell me what’s going on before he gets here.” Paula takes a sip of wine then turns to walk downstairs to get the steaks from the basement fridge. As she passes the floor to ceiling mirror on the far wall of the dining room, she stops for a second to regard her profile, and smiles, sure that Pat cannot see her face.

Patrick O’Brien is a private investigator, retired after 20 years in the FBI. He rarely talks about the cases he is on, but he is, and always has been, a great father and husband. He is also damned good at what he does.

The truth is, he cannot wait to hear more about the situation Jimmy hinted at over the phone. And he does catch Paula’s curious smile, from the reflection in the dining room window on the adjacent wall.

Our stories

Archives

blog stats

if you like this, you might like

top posts & pages

contributors

copyright notice

This website content is copyright of the individual authors of the stories.
Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited.
You may not, except with the author's express written permission, distribute or commercially exploit the content. Nor may you transmit it or store it in any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system.

what’s this all about?

We're creating characters. I'll post a list of prompts in advance. Our writers write stories based on the prompts and publish to the site when they're done. Simple!

Show us your character. We'll show you ours. :)
To find out how you can add your story, click the Participate button above.